The present invention generally relates to the field of network packet transfer. More specifically, the present invention relates to packet transfer mechanisms in wireless cellular networks.
The increasing dependence on the Internet and the wide-spread use of wireless terminals have given rise to considerable interest in the development of a wireless Internet. In particular, such wireless networks are expected to provide efficient packet transfer and support multimedia applications. Of importance in the wireless segment is the flexibility in allocation of bandwidth and efficient use of radio resources. In the core networks, multi-protocol label switching is emerging as a technology to facilitate traffic engineering and internetworking. Label switched transfer is an extension to packet forwarding whereby short fixed length labels are attached to packets at an entry node to provide a path to an exit node. What is needed is an architecture, using label switching, to support wireless mobile terminals.
ATM has been used to a certain extent as a switching technology for backbone networks to support integrated services with QoS control. Considerable research has been carried out to extend ATM services to mobile terminals mostly with the assumption that ATM connections terminate at the wireless users. For example, Wireless-ATM (WATM), may extend the ATM signaling and control framework to support mobility. On the other hand, with the widespread use of Internet protocols, many schemes have been proposed to support mobility for IP wireless terminals within a connection-oriented framework of ATM networks.
Connection-oriented transfer mode requires segments of the connection to be released and reestablished, thus leading to significant complexity when the end points move. Connectionless mode, on the other hand, may simplify adaptation to changes in particular when mobility and hand-off are present. What is also needed is an architecture that takes advantage of both transfer modes without the complexity of Wireless-ATM.
The cellular industry needs an architectures that involve minimal requirements at the mobile terminal, and allows the mobile terminals to be interconnected to the backbone network. This architecture should include mechanisms for location and handoff management as well as label merging capability and fast rerouting schemes to support multilink techniques and mobility.